Umar feared that the companions...

Umar feared that the companions, if they go into the provinces, might yield to the temptation of exploiting their influence and prestige! If the events following the death of the Prophet are studied in their human context, it will provide a cushion to absorb the shock for those Muslims who expect the companions to be angels but find them common, garden-variety men.

If many of the companions revealed themselves as men driven by ambition and self-interest after the death of the Prophet, it was so because in his lifetime they had no hope or opportunity of realizing them. But as soon as he died, they felt that they were free to pursue their own goals in life.

The traditional Sunni approach to the assessment of the role of the companions has been what Thomas Fleming has called “the golden glow approach.” This approach depicts everyone of the companions as a combination saint-hero and genius. But this depiction is not true to life, and because it is not, it puts them out of focus.

A more realistic view would be that the companions were human like the rest of mankind, and that they too could yield to the temptation of taking advantage of an opportunity or of power in their hands.

Lord Action, the famous British historian, and himself a devout Catholic, once offered the following admonition to those people who made excuses for the excesses of the Catholic Church's Renaissance Popes: “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely ...

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Al-Qur’an al-Majid has paid rich tributes to those Muslims who proved themselves worthy of the companionship of Muhammad. But it has also indicted those among them who were unworthy of it. Many verses were revealed in their indictment. The reputation of many of the companions of the Prophet was smudged with jealousy.

Their resentment at the appointment of Usama bin Zayd bin Haritha as Supreme Commander of the Syrian expedition, was a manifestation of this jealousy. In later years, the same jealousy led to the murder of one caliph, and led to rebellion against another. Not many among the companions made a conscious effort to suppress their jealousy in the broader interests of Islam, and of the umma of the Apostle. The conflicts of the companions have long since passed into history.